Re-Download Mac OS X Lion from the App Store

Need to redownload Mac OS X Lion from the Mac App Store? If you plan on making an install drive but you already upgraded to Lion, you’ll need to redownload the Installer so that you can extract the DMG file. This is the sure fire way to do it, in short, hold the Option key for everything:

Open the Mac App Store

Hold the Option key and click on “Purchases”

Option-click on “OS X Lion” from the purchased app list

“Installed’ should now say “Install” which allows you to re-download OS X Lion, otherwise you can Option-click again on the “Install” button to start re-downloading OS X Lion, shown in the screenshot above

Some users have trouble with that method, and instead they can try holding Option while launching the App Store in addition to when clicking on the greyed out installer next to OS X Lion, allowing you to download again. Option-clicking on OS X Lion from Purchases and then the “Install” button from the OS X Lion App Store page hasn’t failed us, but there do seem to be conflicting reports.

If you already bought Lion, you should not be charged twice for any additional downloads of Lion. If you’re already running OS X Lion and you do this, you’ll get a pop-up warning that says “A newer version of this app is already installed on this computer” but you can click again and download anyway.
This is the same trick you use to install Lion final over the GM build (they are the same build number unless you have a 2011 MacBook Air or Mini), and really the primary purpose of this is so that you can make a Lion install drive or use the recently available easy Lion Disk Maker tool. We probably should have posted this much earlier to clear up any potential confusion, but better late than never right?

Thanks to our commenters for the reminder

Update: The instructions have been clarified to hopefully alleviate some of the confusion a few commenters have had. This tip has been verified multiple times on different Macs with both OS X Lion and Snow Leopard, here is a screenshot of OS X Lion re-downloading from the App Store within Mac OS X Lion:

In other words, it works, we promise! Option-click that Install button!

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104 Comments

Was reading through your article on re-downloading Lion. What I’m curious about is, if I buy a new computer with Lion pre-installed is there a way to use that purchase of Lion to upgrade other Macs in my household assuming they can handle Lion of course? What do you think?

[…] you would need to do so from a Mac with Snow Leopard (10.6.8) installed on it. Well, the folks at OSXDaily have found a solution to redownload the installer from a Lion PC. Follow along below to redownload […]

It doesn’t work.
I can’t say why but obviously some folks can’t get this to work. I had to call @ support for the 10.7 upgrade from 10.6.8, and one of the suggested workarounds was exactly these instructions.

They didn’t work. Fortunately, I made a USB drive install file straight away so I could have done a reinstall if needed.

The support guys tried 3 times to get this ‘re-download’ to work and were unsuccessful.

Doggone it Paul, quit telling us to re-read the instructions. I did and I had a friend come over and read as well.

It failed for both of us.

Clicking the option key (left or right, multiple USB and BT keyboards) when launching, when clicking the Purchases button, etc. most emphatically did not work. If clicking the option key doesn’t do anything when you click the Purchases button, then you are nowhere. You can’t even try to click on the Lion purchase.

Please acknowledge the fact that there are a number of us who have read the instructions and who have failed to get any results.

Please note that one of the commenters above had also gone through Apple’s support line, and these same instructions failed him.

What is obviously working for you is also obviously not working for some of us (for who knows what reason but it’s not through lack of reading and comprehending the instructions) is no reason to lash out like that. Try to figure out why it isn’t working for us. I’ve done my due diligence by using different keyboards and people, with no success.

DIdn’t work for me at first, but playing around it did. Use option-click until you get somewhere. For me I had to click on the $29.99 again, get an error, do that again, and then finally I got an error where it let me continue to download.

So where does the file go when it’s downloading? I see it in the Launcher, but I can’t tell if it’s proceeding (perhaps just moving very, very slowly). But it’s a mystery to me where the temporary file is located while it’s downloading.

On further review….still didn’t work with iMac using Apple aluminum wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse set up for right and left clicks nor when resetting mouse for only single click. However, worked just fine on my older MacBook with built in single click button/track pad.

If I get some time, I’ll pair the Magic Mouse — and maybe the wireless keyboard–to the MacBook and see what happens. I think I’ve got a corded Apple keyboard around someplace too and maybe plug that into the trials too.

iMac with Lion preinstalled. I got the message about a newer version being already installed (preinstall is 11A511a), then an error about insufficient funds. I put in a credit card number, and it let me start the download. It’s about 3/4 done downloading. I’ll post an update when it’s done about whether or not I get billed for the thirty bucks.

Quit the Mac App store then hold the option key and click on purchases. Where is this purchases button? If it’s within the App store menu system, I can’t click on it because you told me to quit the App store immediately prior to clicking on the option key.

Thank you guys! You saved my life, literally :) The simple option+click method didn’t work for me, but the I tried holding the Option while launching the App Store in addition to when clicking on the greyed out installer, and it worked.

For anyone still trying to re-download Lion and having trouble, try restarting your MacBook, waiting for all of the startup processes to finish, then press and hold the left “option” key while clicking the Mac App Store icon, Purchases icon, and then the greyed-out “Installed” or highlighted “Install” button on the Lion row. When I tried releasing the “option” key between clicks, it did not work and the Lion button always showed “Installed”. When I held the “option” key down without releasing from start to finish, the Lion button showed “Install” and allowed me to make that last “option-click” move. Thanks to all of you for your expertise. You’ve helped me greatly.

If you have the “Install Mac OS X Lion” app in your Applications folder (or perhaps elsewhere other than in the trash) then the option-click doesn’t work. There may, of course, be other reasons why it doesn’t work, but for me, once I trashed the Lion installer, I was allowed to re-download, using the option-click method described in this post. Until I trashed the previous installer, no combination of keys and clicks would allow me to re-download.

This did it for me. I kept holding the option key through launch to purchases to install and could not get it to work. The odd bit was that the App Store indicated that Lion was “Installed” when in fact the computer was running Snow Leopard. Once I saw this post, I looked in my Applications folder and low and behold there was a “Install Mac OS X Lion” app. I just double clicked and installed Lion. Obviously, the App Store only looks for the Install app on the computer and doesn’t actually check what OS is installed.

In short, if you can’t get Option-clicking to work, make sure the Install app isn’t already on your computer.

Thank you John, just for testing purpose I’ve tried everything without success (different keyb., left and right Option key, …) your tip is the solution: unmounting the HD where I saved the “Install Mac OS X Lion” solved the issue, the button (finally) changed to “Install”.
Thank you again.

[…] Installed button while holding the option key. This will allow you to re-download the installer as mentioned here.If your computer is already running Lion and you want to do a fresh reinstall you do NOT need a […]

None of this worked for me either. Option + Click just sat there. I found the install lion in the applications folder and sent it to the trash. When I opened the app store, and clicked on purchases, the installed button was changed back to install.

Hi, is there any way to redownload lion on a MacBook pro 15″ 2011 model that came with lion pre-installed? Holding option doesn’t change the “installed” button and lion doesn’t show in “purchased” section.

Hi,
i’ve tried all the suggestion and what i get is the “29.99” label at the button instead of showing “install” or “installed”
any idea?
i’ve updated to the latest Lion (Patch), but does that make any different?
kindly advice.

[…] from the App Store) or an OS X Lion USB drive – Tip: from a Mac running 10.7 Lion, you can re-download OS X Lion from the App Store without having to buy it again by simply holding down the option key when […]

Got it working, after making the mistake that cmd was the option key -.-

But anyway, does anyone know if it charges you a second time re-downloading Lion from Lion? Has anyone already done that? I want to make sure before potentially being charged again…

I currently have Lion installed, but I want to go back to Snow Leopard. But before I format etc, I wanted to make sure I could get a copy so I can upgrade back to Lion in the future if and when I need (I did pay for it after all, I want a copy of the file so I don’t “lose” the £20.99).

I launched the App store, then went to Store –> View My Account. On the Account Information pane there should be an area for the cloud saying you have hidden purchases. View the hidden purchases and unhide them by selecting the proper button. Close App store. Launch holding down the option button. Then once the App store is open release the option key…then press it down again and selected the Purchased tab. You should see it available for download now. If not, retry some of the other techniques after you have unhid the purchase from the cloud.

BINGO! I actually just discovered this and was going to share it. I am glad I didn’t pay Apple an unnecessary $29.99, but instead unhid it. To clarify: I didn’t need to click the green Buy App button again!

Note: I had to “view my account” twice because I had changed my apple id email address recently.

I was trying to install Linux (first without refit, then with it) and somehow my EFI partition got wiped out (Disk Utility complains), and also my Recovery HD got wiped out. Fortunately the main Lion partition still boots for now. Eeep!

– I bought Lion on someone else’s Mac using my Apple ID.
– I then bought a brand new Macbook Air (but 4,1 version.)
– I changed my Apple ID
– I didn’t have to re-buy, but could re-download using Sean’s method combined with the blog author’s method.

FInally I got it to work using your 2nd method. Thanks a lot!!
Press alt/option key + Click to open the Mac App Store, keeping the alt/opt key down clikc on Lion OS… and finally it start to download again.

The MacBook Pro came with Lion pre-installed and it has a Recovery HD partition or drive to reinstall it. You can only redownload Lion if you bought Lion from the App Store to begin with, that’s pretty clear.

If you Lion came preinstalled you didn’t buy it from the Mac App Store and it’s only available on the Recovery HD partition. This article is about re-downloading OS X Lion from the Mac App Store after you have already paid for it.

Oh Man I am just fed up of this Mac now. I have 15 Inch 2.2 Hz MBP which is 3 months old, and once I switch it off, there is no guarantee that it’ll switch on again. I lost my 400GB of data once when it didn’t start, took it to the Apple Service Center who reinstalled Lion. Now again after 15 days from that, my MBP isnt starting, though it is starting in safe mode, but it doesnt attach pen drive or external hard disk so I can’t back up my data. I tried reinstalling LION from App Store and when it downloaded, and I proceeded with the install, it “quit unexpectedly”. Then I tried downloading it through disk utility while restarting the comp, and mid way of the download it asks ” Do you want to cancel download?” with the options of ” Cancel / Cancel Download”. I clicked Cancel, and it cancelled downlod. This happened twice (i clicked the other next time, but no luck). I have no clue what to do next. Can anyone help?

i managed to download it!
except in a completely different way…
i continuously clicked on the logo of the app on its page, forcing the page to reload
then, since there was a tiny bit of lag between the loading of the page and when the button would revert to “installed”, i took advantage of that and clicked on the button. After that, the button switched to “buy now”, and I accepted. Since i’d already purchased the app, though, it gave me the opportunity to download it again for free!
problem solved ^_^

Hi. My black MacBook will support Lion but not Mountain Lion. So, I bought and installed Lion. I then installed Sparrow mail client and had trouble making it the default so in a moment of madness I trashed Mail App. I now want to re install Lion so I can get mail.app back, but it’s no longer on App Store.

Found “Purchases”! I held down my right “Option” key, went to Apple Icon at left top of screen, and clicked on “App Store”. At the middle, top of the screen was the word Purchases. I signed in, option clicked on Lion, and it started downloading.